1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an analytical process for the determination of acetylcyanamide in a matrix and/or in an extract which is obtained from this matrix. The method of the invention is used to determine acetylcyanamide in any desired materials or mixtures of materials, determination preferably taking place in materials of biological origin, and more specifically in urine.
2. Prior Art Statement
Acetylcyanamide may occur in the course of metabolism of cyanamide in the body of people who are being treated for therapeutic purposes with cyanamide or calcium cyanamide or who for occupational reasons come into contact with cyanamide. In the animal body is a metabolic product which is excreted, for example, by experimental animals which have been specifically fed with cyanamide. Cyanamide is being use to an increasing extent in crop cultivation. Apart from application of calcium cyanamide as field fertilizer, it is possible to use cyanamide in accordance with German Offenlegungsschrift 3,150,404 to overcome bud dormancy in vines or other fruit crops.
For environmental and health protection reasons it is desirable to develop analytical methods for the determination of acetylcyanamide in the trace range in people and in animals. Analytical methods hitherto disclosed (Shirota et alii, Drug Metabolism and Disposition 12, 337-334, (1984) are based on measurement of the radioactivity of .sup.1 4 C-labeled acetylcyanamide or the N-benzyl or N-(4-nitrobenzyl) derivative thereof by means of CIMS (Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrography) and UV measurement of the corresponding labeled or unlabeled compounds. Direct determination of trace amounts of unlabeled acetylcyanamide has not hitherto been described.